This application claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-285624, filed Sep. 20, 2000, the contents of which are incorporated hereinto by this reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and a method for assisting in composing music by means of musical templates extracted from existing pieces of music, and a machine readable medium containing program instructions for realizing such a system and a method, and more particularly to a system and a method for assisting a user in composing a music piece by selectively utilizing music piece templates representing various characteristic elements of existing music pieces. The present invention also relates to a musical template data providing apparatus for supplying music piece template data to clients via a communication network.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In accordance with the popularization of portable telephones (cellular phones), personal computers and other terminal units to be used in a communication network, and with the dramatic increase of accesses to Internet, data delivery services from a server on Internet are becoming more and more popular to deliver musical data to communication terminal units in a MIDI file format, a WAVE file format, MP3 (MPEG1 Audio Layer 3) compressed file format, and so forth. The user makes an access to a server computer from a communication terminal unit via a communication network to download desired music piece data from among data files of a plurality of music pieces stored in the server computer, and plays back the downloaded music piece data by the communication terminal unit or by an electronic musical instrument or the like connected to the communication terminal unit to enjoy listening to the played-back music or to utilize the music as the sound of telephone ringing. However, mere playback of existing music will be taken as being monotonous and non-original.
Also known in the art is a type of music data composing apparatus which is capable of forming music piece data through edition by the user to meet the user""s preference, as described, for example, in Japanese unexamined patent publication No. 2000-221976 dated Aug. 11, 2000 and in its parallel U.S. Pat. No. 6,245,984 issued Jun. 12, 2001, in which a personal computer stores a plurality of basic musical template data sets beforehand as the software for the computer and the user selects the situation, the feeling, the style, etc. to determine the template to be used for edition, so that the user may compose a desirable music piece according to the user""s intention. The musical template data therein are basic information for constituting music pieces and contain chord progression data, melody skeleton data, accompaniment style data, and so forth, and will be originally prepared by a software maker. Such a scheme will allow the user to create an original work of music data easily independently from existing music pieces.
As the musical template data are usually installed together with a software program from a CD-ROM or downloaded with a software program via a communication network, there is a limit in variety. Accordingly, with a conventional music piece data creating apparatus, music piece data will be created from one of a limited number of musical templates, and hence a created music piece will be short of climax (bridge) and characteristics as compared with the existing music piece data, even though the user adds some edition thereto.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to solve the prior art disadvantages and to provide a system and method for assisting a user in composing music piece data which will contain characteristics derived from existing original music pieces, and also to provide a music piece template data providing apparatus for supplying music piece template data to clients via a communication network for assisting in composing music piece data.
According to the present invention, the object is accomplished by providing a system for assisting in composing music comprising: a communication network, a server apparatus which is connected in the communication network and provides music piece template data files respectively representing features of source music pieces, and a client apparatus which is connected in the communication network and creates a music piece data file based on music piece template data; wherein the server apparatus includes: a music piece template data storing device which stores a plurality of music piece template data files respectively representing features of source music pieces; and a data supplying device which supplies, via the communication network, a music piece template data file as selectively requested by the client apparatus out of the stored plurality of music piece template data files; and the client apparatus includes: a data receiving device which selectively requests, via the communication network, a desired music piece template data file from the server apparatus, and receives, via the communication network, the desired music piece template data file from the server apparatus; a music piece data creating device which creates data of a new piece of music based on the received music piece template data file; and a storing device which stores the data of a new piece of music.
According to an aspect of the present invention, the server may deliver a source music piece, and the template data file may be created at the client side by extracting features from the source music piece.
According to the present invention, the object is further accomplished by providing an apparatus for assisting in composing music comprising: a data receiving device which is to receive selectively a desired music piece template data file from a music piece template data providing apparatus which stores a plurality of music piece template data files respectively representing features of source music pieces; a connecting device which connects the data receiving device to the music piece template data providing apparatus for delivering the desired music piece template data file; a music piece data creating device which creates data of a new piece of music based on the received music piece template data file; and a storing device which stores the data of a new piece of music.
According to another aspect of the present invention, the music piece template data providing apparatus is a server apparatus connected in a communication network and delivers the desired music piece template data file to the data receiving device upon request of delivery from the data receiving device which is also connected in the communication network through the connecting device.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, the music piece template data files are prepared by extracting features of source music pieces.
According to a still further aspect of the present invention, the music piece template data files contain chord progression data for several measures of music, data concerning pitches and time points of notes for several measures of music, and/or accompaniment style data.
According to a still further aspect of the present invention, the music piece template data providing apparatus stores the plurality of music piece template data files together with the corresponding source music piece data files for delivering the desired music piece template data file together with the corresponding source music piece data file.
According to a still further aspect of the present invention, the apparatus for assisting in composing music further comprises a performance playback device which reads out from the storing device the data of the created new piece of music to play back the new piece of music.
According to a still further aspect of the present invention, the apparatus for assisting in composing music further comprises a data sending device for sending the music piece template data file and/or the data of the created new piece of music together with an electronic mail to another apparatus via the communication network.
According to the present invention, the object is further accomplished by providing an apparatus for assisting in composing music comprising: a data receiving device which is to receive selectively a desired music piece data file from a music piece data providing apparatus which stores a plurality of music piece data files respectively representing source music pieces; a connecting device which connects the data receiving device to the music piece data providing apparatus for delivering the desired music piece data file; a music piece template data creating device which creates a music piece template data file corresponding to the received music piece data file by extracting features of the source music piece from the received music piece data file; a music piece data creating device which creates data of a new piece of music based on the created music piece template data file; and a storing device which stores the created music piece template data file, or the created music piece template data file and the data of a new piece of music.
According to a still further aspect of the present invention, the music piece data providing apparatus is a server apparatus connected in a communication network and delivers the desired music piece data file to the data receiving device upon request of delivery from the data receiving device which is also connected in the communication network through the connecting device.
According to the present invention, the object is further accomplished by providing a music piece template data providing apparatus comprising: a music piece template data storing device which stores a plurality of music piece template data files respectively representing features of source music pieces; a data supplying device which supplies a music piece template data file as selectively requested by a user terminal out of the stored plurality of music piece template data files; and a connecting device which connects the data supplying device to the user terminal which receives the requested music piece template data file and creates data of a new piece of music based on the received music piece template data file.
According to the present invention, the object is still further accomplished by providing a method for assisting in composing music comprising: a step of connecting to a music piece template data providing apparatus which stores a plurality of music piece template data files respectively representing features of source music pieces; a step of receiving, through selective request, a desired music piece template data file from the connected music piece template data providing apparatus; a step of creating data of a new piece of music based on the received music piece template data file; and a step of storing the created data of a new piece of music.
According to the present invention, the object is still further accomplished by providing a storage medium storing a program that is executable by a computer for assisting in composing music, the program comprising: a module for connecting to a music piece template data providing apparatus which stores a plurality of music piece template data files respectively representing features of source music pieces; a module for receiving, through selective request, a desired music piece template data file from the connected music piece template data providing apparatus; a module for creating data of a new piece of music based on the received music piece template data file; and a module for storing the created data of a new piece of music.
According to the present invention, therefore, a new music piece will be composed having resemblance to an existing music number to some extent.